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A brief overview of Apple’s new ‘Hide my Email’ feature, how it actually works, when to use it, and when not to use it.
Online privacy is crucial, but it’s challenging to protect your identity when you have to reveal your email address to virtually every website you join. Additionally, you can be disclosing even more information if your email address contains your name or any other personally identifiable information.
Apple’s Hide my Email function can help with that, as it enables you to register for websites and submit forms using a fictitious email address. By doing this, you may still receive the emails you desire while preventing others from knowing your actual email address.
Although Hide my Email is presently an Apple-only functionality, it’s not going to stay that way for long. Other service providers will roll out their own versions of it and these will accomplish the same thing. In fact, Google Chrome is said to already have an extension that does more or less the same thing as this iOS tool. So, if you aren’t Apple user, but you like the idea of Hide my Email, there are going to be alternatives you can use in the very near future.
Now, let’s look at how Hide my Email actually works.
The Ins and outs of this tool?
Unique, random email addresses created by Hide My Email are immediately forwarded to your inbox. You only have one address. Your personal email address is kept confidential while you may view and reply to emails sent to these addresses directly.
You can opt to reveal your email address if you’re acquainted with the app or website, or you can choose to conceal your email address if you’d like more privacy when you establish an account with an application or go to a website that accepts Sign in with Apple. If you select the Hide My Email option, only the app or website where you established the account will be able to contact you using this arbitrary email address.
Except for doing basic spam filtering, Apple doesn’t read or otherwise handle any of the content of email messages that travel through this feature. After being delivered, all email messages are promptly removed from the Apple relay servers.
The email address that receives redirected emails can be changed at any time by you/the user. At any time, you can decide to cease receiving emails by disabling email forwarding. You can find and manage your fake email addresses by going to iCloud > Hide My Email.
When to use the hide my email feature?
Staying safe online is a priority and Apple is all about security. We tend to sign up at some not-so-kosher sites and giving our real email address can be pretty risky. If you’re someone that frequents adult-themed sites such as online casinos, then this new tool can come in handy. Yes, online casinos are licensed, but there are still operators who will take you for a ride and then drop you off in the desert. Even though their $400 free no deposit bonus sounds fantastic. Bottom Line? Take precautions.
So, basically, whenever you need to provide your email address in order to access content or sign up with a site and use its features without wanting to receive marketing emails from them, it would be the ideal situation to use the Hide My Email feature. So, how exactly do you use it?
How you can set up hide my email?
In order to use Hide My Email, you need to go through an easy setup process. Here’s how you can set up this feature before you start making use of it:
To access your account, go to Settings and hit your name at the top.
- Select iCloud > Hide My Email.
- Press Create New Address. A unique, random address that ends in @icloud.com will be automatically generated by Apple and forwarded to your personal mailbox. You may press Use Different Address to view a different address if you don’t like the one it generates. Tap Continue if you’re happy.
- You may label your address and add a comment to help you remember what it’s for on the next screen. In the top right corner, select Next.
- You may use your newly generated random address anywhere and anytime you choose.
When not to use hide my email?
Hide my Email has only become necessary because some brands have abused the privilege of knowing people’s email addresses by bombarding them with marketing material. Hide My Email should only be used in such instances and not at all times. In many cases, you want to be able to receive relevant emails and communications and it is in your best interest to provide your actual email address in such cases. So, if you’re dealing with a company or brand that you trust, know and like, it would adversely affect your communications and relationship with the brand if you used this tool.
Also, using Hide My Email can result in multiple fake email addresses that you can lose track of easily. Instead, many people have always used a more traditional solution for the problem by simply having one more email account just to handle all junk and spam email. When asked for an email address, you may simply provide this alternate email address.
